From a tent in an encampment to a hotel room
During the spectacular thunderstorms that drenched Toronto on Wednesday night, Maxine’s donated tent was swept away.
The 52-year-old had pitched her tent in Moss Park, amidst a broad cluster of polyester abodes whose occupants have taken shelter from the chronic storm of homelessness.
“It was horrible,” says Maxine. “Everything got soaked. Trying to dry my clothes now, but a lot of this stuff has turned into garbage.”
She’s been homeless for three years, largely avoiding shelters. “I don’t feel safe there. Bedbugs and other diseases. All the talk is about COVID, but there was so much sickness among the homeless already. And I don’t want to get raped. People forcing you to do what you don’t want to do.”
Besides, she notes, shelters have been plagued by COVID-19 outbreaks. As of Tuesday, according to the city’s website, there were 563 positive COVID cases linked to shelters. Outbreaks in at least eight shelters and respite sites.
Maxine ended up on the street because of domestic violence, she says. But the how and why of it — the varied essence of homelessness — is not the focus of this story. In the middle of a public health crisis, it’s about very shortterm coping and strategies.
“We’re dehumanized,” Maxine continues. “People have been walking by and taking pictures of us, like we’re animals in a zoo.
“How about having a little empathy instead?”
Maxine adds: “Nobody has offered me a hotel room.’’
City officials say they have been doing their best to move vulnerable people off the streets, into upwards of 15 hotels. The Shelter, Support and Housing Division has opened 31 additional sites since mid-March to accommodate physical distancing. As of two weeks ago, 1,370 homeless had been relocated to the hotels from shelters and encampments. Additionally, almost 560 had been transferred to community centres and other spaces. Those spaces include a pair of vacant midrise apartment buildings awaiting redevelopment construction permits, and available for up to six months.
“Nobody wants to go there,” says Mohammed, Maxine’s middle-aged friend. “From what I hear, they don’t even have water.” That’s not true, actually. The city is paying $3 million to use those buildings, which covers the cost of security, cleaning and meals provided by a catering company.
Surely the sodden Moss Park encampment is hardly a better option. “We don’t have water here either. No food except what people bring us. No sanitary products for the women. But there are porta-potties.
“Take a good look,” he says, sweeping his hand across this underbelly urban vista. “This is our reality. We’re suffering, man.” Mohammed says somebody came around with a clipboard, took his name, claimed he’d be put on a waiting list for a hotel room. That was weeks ago.
Clearly, the helping hand of social agencies hasn’t been sufficient to meet the need of Toronto’s transient and shambolic-housed population, particularly under the hammer of a pandemic. Encampments have sprung up across the city, where the destitute huddle, while others cluster beneath overpasses. City spokesperson Kris Scheuer told the Star via email: “Encampments are only cleared once (they are) abandoned or vacated by individuals choosing to access shelter, respite sites, hotels or housing.”
This is disputed by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and coalition partners which have railed against the city for not doing more as the homeless community has been devastated by COVID-19; shelter-users are infected at a rate nine times that of the Toronto housed population, according to an open letter OCAP sent to Mayor John Tory and city council earlier this month.
“The situation has forced hundreds, likely well over a thousand people, to seek protection in tents outdoors,” said the letter. “Despite this, you’ve reversed a prior moratorium and are now actively clearing homeless encampments.”
They’re not a good look for the city, obviously.
Encampments that have are both an eyesore and visible evidence of social, political and economic shortcomings. Last week, police arrested two drug-trafficking suspects in the fentanyl-infested tent city at George Hislop Park. Four overdose calls were recorded in the area of the Sanctuary dropin centre alongside.
That’s another and attendant blight, where homelessness meets addiction. More a health matter than a policing matter. In any event, the encampments are a stop-gap and urban esthetics isn’t the most pressing issue right now, although nearby residents and workers are deeply disturbed by the proliferation of used needles, the unsanitary conditions, the open drug use.
The lucky ones are those who’ve landed in a soft hotel bed, in a room of their own, many of whom have not enjoyed such luxury in ages.
“I got here yesterday,” says Diane, 29, having a smoke outside a Yonge Street hotel that has been turned over for the purpose, its homeless complement managed by Dixon Hall, the charitable neighbourhood service. Until
Wednesday, Diane and her boyfriend had been living — existing — in a tent city at Bathurst and Lake Shore. Knocking around among shelters for six months prior to that. She was placed in the hotel (their exact locations aren’t being disclosed by the Star) through the Streets to Homes program. “There were about a hundred of us there and they took all of us away.”
She can hardly believe her good fortune. “A bed, our own room, safety. And a shower whenever I want. That beats the street, for sure.”
Diane had been working as a clerk at a Shopper’s Drug Mart, even as she remained homeless, never able to get enough money together for first and last month rent. “But I was always so tired because of the way I was living. My boss finally said he had to let me go.”
While a harm-reduction program for drug addicts is offered at this particular hotel, it should be noted — others in the social assistance network have told the Star this — that this location has experienced problems with some of its residents. If so, that’s no surprise. You can’t just shunt people who’ve been living hard on the streets to gentler circumstances and expect them to suddenly reinvent themselves.
Amir Mohamud, 27, has been on the street for six years. Once upon a time, he says, he was a York University student — until his mother kicked him out of the house for drug use and then everything went sideways.
“If only I could have, like, three months to build myself up again, make something of myself. I still have hopes. I still have goals I think I can reach.
“Just give me a place where my mind can rest for a while.”
Mohamud tried to get into this hotel on Wednesday, but was turned away. “I wasn’t on the list.” Different hotels, different charitable agencies in charge, different rules.
At a Jarvis Street hotel under the temporary auspices of Good Shepherd Ministries, those rules are strict: Absolutely no alcohol or drugs, a 9 p.m. curfew, no visitors in the rooms and those high or inebriated won’t get past the lobby.
In return, a private room, air conditioning, three meals a day and repeated temperature-taking to check for possible COVID contraction.
“Way more than I expected,’ ” says Craig, 27, who came directly from a drug treatment facility a week ago. “I wouldn’t even mind sharing a room. It’s pretty quiet around here.”
Back at Moss Park, Anna, 36, is renewing acquaintances with friends she made while living in a tent for nearly three months, until she landed a hotel room recently. Her accommodation is way out in Don Mills, run by the Fred Victor Mission.
“I couldn’t believe it. I almost felt guilty when I walked into my room. I was almost, like, ‘Oh, my God!’ Three meals a day and they clean the room twice a week. They even do our laundry. It’s a different kind of place, with families and kids staying there.
Originally from Halifax, homeless on and off for the last year coming off an abusive relationship, employed at a scattershot of jobs when she can find work and now on disability.
“I lucked out by the grace of God and because I have a very good social worker.”
Externally, the change has been profound. Clean clothes, clean hair, healthy-looking, instead of haggard. And an emotional well-being she hadn’t felt in a long time. And yet. While her housing salvation, for at least three more months, is in Don Mills, her heart remains at Moss Park.
“Honestly, nobody’s ever had my back like these people.”
Her arm, however, that’s in a sling. “I went over the handlebars of my bike. And then somebody stole it.”